A Different Shade
by Sumeragi Sui
Summary: “A Letter to My Brother”; A different, twisted story shedding light on a new version of Hokuto’s point of view.


**A Different Shade**

[Sumeragi Sui]

_Summary:_ "A Letter to My Brother"; A different, twisted story shedding light on a new version of Hokuto's point of view. Can be seen as a companion to "Mirror Image", but both are individual fics and can stand on their own.

_Warnings:_ Incest. Moderately strong and at times somewhat disturbing thoughts from Hokuto. This is not necessarily a representation of the author's viewpoint, if at all, however. Spoilers from the end of Tokyo Babylon.

_Disclaimer:_ CLAMP, CLAMP, and CLAMP. All copyright CLAMP.

_Dedications:_ Dedicated to my dearest neechan Kawaii*Kimi-chan, and Po, my *blue!* teddy bear.__

_Notes:_ First of all, I'd like to say this is a rather insane interpretation of Hokuto's POV, not one I entirely support, but one I think is rather interesting and almost controversial.  There are small hints of incest in X; Setsuka and Seishirou, for example, and I already illustrated that in my other fic. However, because I get the feeling Hokuto loves Subaru most of all, and in what way is most _likely_ sisterly, I think it'd be a nice experience illustrating a more "different" viewpoint. In fact, when I saw that the Subaru x Hokuto fanlisting at TFL.org was originally for supporters of a _romantic_ relationship between the two, I was most disturbed myself. But even so, I think it's interesting. One thing I need to keep clear here is that Hokuto's POV in this fic does not apply to her feelings in any other Hokuto fics I've done or will do in the future. Otherwise it sort of ruins the overall atmosphere of "By Your Side" ^_^

Okay, enough rambling. Please enjoy =)

*

Subaru…

I died for you, I died so you could come back, so you could be free again.  And I realized as I watched you wake that it might not have been the best idea.  Right after Seishirou killed me… I started crying when I realized I had hurt you too.  And I can't stand to hurt you, you are the one I love the most.  My twin… Subaru…

…I knew you would never love me back the way I loved you.  Words cannot begin to describe exactly how much I feel for you, yet I know that petty love can never be returned.  You only loved me because I was your twin sister.  You were obeying your own bloodline by loving me, it wasn't of your own free will, it was just sheer compliance.  And because I knew you would die for anyone, or anything… because your heart was _that_ pure… I wanted you to love someone who would help you hold on to life.

So I encouraged you and Seishirou.  I thought his meanings were true, or at least not as false as they could have been.  I was utterly wrong… You'd blush every time Seishirou and I joked about being in-laws, and I loved pairing you together in hopes of you falling in love…

But instead, I ended up hurting you even more.  Scarring you, so much that you went inside your own soul and refused to come out… but Subaru…

I can't be selfish and say that you should have returned to reality for my own sake.  Once you'd gone Within I realized you loved Seishirou more than you would ever love me.  And even though Seishirou was older and more mature, and he had secretly been the enemy the whole time... he didn't understand.

Simply, I told him I didn't want him to take you away from me.  He said he didn't understand, and I explained that I wanted you to have a reason to keep on living, because you had no true _desire_ to live.  Your virtuous soul would perish of its own free will, and that was the reason why you were about to let Yuya's mother kill you.  For you thought Yuya's life… so young… was worth more than yours.

It wasn't true.  I don't think you ever realized that I felt so much for you, I just wanted you to _live_, to enjoy life, like any other human being.  I couldn't dirty your soul, or even flaw it in the hopes of making you understand.  I was your sister, and so you only loved me for that single fact.

Seishirou reassured me or something… I don't even remember it now.  All I remember, wherever I am [as I'm not quite sure myself…], watching you and crying… was the moments I'd spent with you, our childhood together, our days as immature, naïve sixteen-year-olds finding ourselves.

So I had to endure the pain of watching you give up your dream.  The dream you promised me you wouldn't give up… that you would throw away the honor of being thirteenth head of the Sumeragi clan for…

As for me… I had no powers myself, except small, insignificant trifles that did barely anything.  But I could not envy you, for I viewed your powers as a burden, and I pained for you in that aspect as well, watching you have to suffer the misfortunes of others, afraid of hurting them…

And the promise Seishirou and I made… the one he never exactly agreed to… I broke it myself.  I'd said that I'd kill him if he ever made you cry… but instead of making you cry… he did worse.  I was afraid you'd never come back… so instead of killing him… I killed myself, or more truthfully I asked him to kill me to bring you back.

Because by killing him I'd kill the one person that you'd loved "in that way" your whole life… I couldn't do that to you.  You didn't know the sacrifices I'd made for you, yet I don't see you at all as ungrateful, because that's just what you were, innocently oblivious to the moral injustices and hardships of the "real world".

And then you had to face a huge conflict yourself, in the preceding midst of your own confession of feelings to Seishirou.  Had you told him earlier… had you _realized_ it earlier… oh, Subaru… you wouldn't have had to feel this pain, the pain you feel now, from Seishirou, from my death, from pure life.

Watching you… watching you throw away everything, cut your hair, change your clothes, take off the gloves you'd worn for years because Grandmother had told you to… watching you suffer, watching your inner self die, watching you start using your onmyouji powers only so you could defeat Seishirou…

Your Wish… you wondered what I would have thought of it.  You wondered if I'd cry, or I'd get mad, or I'd even be happy in an oblivious daze, almost as if I'd forgotten what he'd done to you, or something moronic like that.  But you guessed right the first time.  Tears.

Crying hopelessly…

Kakyou.

Kuzuki Kakyou… the yumemi that I would visit in his dreamscapes, and keep him company, and go on "dates"… I wonder if I ended up hurting him too.  Thinking about it, he probably had already foresaw your fate, and mine… yet he said nothing, stayed silent in his own pain.  Perhaps, in a twisted way, similar to me… my forced ignorance of the fact that Seishirou had been quite suspicious throughout our year together.

Somehow, I knew Kakyou had felt something for me.  And I did too… although it was not much more than friendship.  It was a sort of discreet longing, and cute adoration.  Perhaps even pity, although if he'd noticed, he chose to ignore it.

I think he realized I loved _you_ more… than anything else on the bleak earth.

And unrequited love comes in so many different forms, different shades… your feelings toward Seishirou, mine towards you, Kakyou's towards myself… yet it still stays plain, a common thing that everybody experiences at once… right?

Then again, I'm not so sure Seishirou ever felt that way… I think… and sometimes that depresses me, that Seishirou was so unlike any other that he was almost inhuman… because even though he hurt you so much, I couldn't help admitting when he killed me that in the end… I was really quite fond of him.

I know I couldn't be the one to make your soul impure.  That was far beyond the point of simply _"wrong"_ feelings… but the person I'd hoped could help you in some way… to make you _feel_ more than anything, more than _I_ could make you feel… wasn't what either of us expected.

Subaru… I want you to live forever, or as long as you can, even if it's painful.  This means I probably won't be able to see you for a long time… but for me, I can wait as long as I need if it makes you happy, or at least content, in life.  Someday I might even tell you how I truly feel… if I feel you are ready for it.  Then again, I might keep it to myself… even here…

I remember my telling you something… how that even though we bore the same face, the same physical characteristics, even though we spent so much time together, we were still two frightfully different people, but every moment we spent together brought us closer, more intimate… How ever time you'd make me happy, I would always thank you, and every time I made a blunder or mistake, I would ask you to forgive me.  "Those things", like the fact that you never forgot to say hello even if you were overloaded with work, made me love you more and more every day…  That single, only time was probably the closest to a discreetly subtle confession that I'd ever attempted to admit… but, my naïve Subaru… you didn't comprehend my love for you at that time for what it truly was, but I was indifferent to that fact… It was how you'd always been.

Even so… I don't think you understand what I'd said even now, but someday… maybe… perhaps, you will.  And even if you can come _close_ to understanding my true feelings for you… that's enough.

For although we share an identical mask, the one which we put out to the world… we are still two very different shades of the same color.

*

_Once upon a time, when mother was still young and embraced the small me_

_About the time when the moon was so far away_

_The factory released black smoke._

_The town was violent,  This daughter wished to become bigger_

_When the daughter became 13 years old, remembers the sense of taste stolen_

_In a black list, a name was left behind._

_Moon  You are all-knowing_

_Moon  Maybe, you are everything_

_The things on the day of the first walk also_

_Saying "I hate Mondays"   Everything in the heart _

_The completely shut daughter is_

_The day that first love fell_

_Can't keep the first thoughts,  Flying from the house_

_Couldn't ever return _

_Broken completely in one moment, because it can be done_

_'It's important to exist' the young girl cried._

_Moon  You are all-knowing_

_Moon  Maybe, you are everything_

_The day of the first kiss also_

_Broken completely in one moment, because it can be done_

_'It's important to exist' the young girl cried._

_Moon  You are all-knowing_

_Moon  Maybe, you are everything_

_The day of the first kiss also_

_Moon  You are all-knowing_

_Moon  Maybe, you are everything_

_The day of the first walk also_

_Moon  You are all-knowing_

_Moon  Maybe, you are everything_

_The day of the first kiss also_


End file.
